Radical Ventures

Co-Founders Jordan Jacobs and Tomi Poutanen steer investment decisions alongside a partnership group that includes Dominic Barton, Sanjana Basu, and Rob Toews. Scientific Partners Geoffrey Hinton and Fei-Fei Li contribute technical evaluation for AI and computer vision deals, but the partnership group carries fiduciary investment authority.

Radical's sourcing relies on deep academic connectivity — Scientific Partners include Turing Award winners and Stanford AI Lab leaders — plus a decade of company-building within the AI ecosystem before deep learning scaled. The firm publishes a high-signal AI newsletter and blog that attracts founder inbound, and its Velocity Team operates as an internal platform to engage portfolio companies' networks for referrals.

Radical operates as a pure venture capital and growth equity firm rather than a liquid hedge fund. It takes equity stakes across seed, early-stage, and expansion rounds, with no publicly disclosed public-market or quantitative-trading activities.

The firm invests directly in AI-native companies and has not disclosed a fund-of-funds allocation strategy. Its portfolio construction, as shown in public materials, reflects direct equity positions rather than LP commitments to other venture funds.

Radical publicly targets AI applications across virtually every sector — from healthcare and climate to financial services and robotics — and does not publish explicit sector exclusions. Its operational focus leans away from AI-for-consumer-social-media plays, emphasizing enterprise and deep-tech applications instead.

Jordan Jacobs and Tomi Poutanen were instrumental in founding Toronto's Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and Scientific Partner Geoffrey Hinton serves as its Chief Scientific Advisor Emeritus. Radical Ventures leverages this ecosystem for talent mapping, deal flow, and technical diligence without formal control or ownership of the Institute.

Radical regularly co-invests alongside global venture firms and sovereign funds in large AI rounds — Cohere's cap table illustrates this — but the firm typically leads or co-leads rounds at the seed and early stage where its technical brand carries the most weight.